Ashes to Ashes
by TribalGirl
Summary: The old guardian knew all the stories of the cemetery, but this one was unmistakeably the most beautiful. Post-Reichenbach oneshot. Translation from French of Caidy-chan's story, I did not write this.


**READ THIS A/N FIRST**

**I did not write this. I simply translated it from French. The original oneshot belongs to Caidy-chan, not me. Just saying.**

**Pour Caidy-chan, si tu lis ça, merçci beaucoup de m'avoir laissée traduire cette très jolie histoire.**

* * *

Nathanael knelt at the tombstone's level and passed a wrinkled and earth-stained hand over the black marble of the slab. The name engraved there shone in the morning light, in elegant golden letters. There were no flowers or potted plants, or even a plaque in memory of the deceased, although the burial had taken place several days ago. The guardian of the cemetery decided that this man must not have been well appreciated.

Straightening up slowly, minding his tired joints, Nathanael sighed and leaned on the handle of his rake. A beautiful day was starting. The sun was already high in the sky and a gentle breeze was stirring the leaves on the trees. The atmosphere of the cemetery was strangely serene, almost peaceful, far from the usual clichés and accepted ideas.

The old guardian liked this spot.

Sometimes, when his work was done, he sat on the stone bench at the end of the terrain and observed the people who walked in the alleys, looking for a name, finding and stopping to reminisce or to leave a bouquet of flowers. It was an old ritual, the flowers, an immutable tradition, but it sometimes happened that the mourners left a more personal object. Then Nathanael couldn't keep himself from going to see what it was.

He knew each marker, each name, each face marked by sorrow and even several stories. It was easy for him to engage in conversation with the visitors. Nathanael was something like everyone's grandfather, with his over seventy years, his worn overalls and the cigarette on his lips.

His eternally calm and attentive face was marked with wrinkles, but one could make out the dry and harmonious lines that had once made him a seductive, self-assured young man. The translucent blue of his eyes was often lost in contemplation of the trees, and his strange tenderness for a maker of tombs attracted stares. A gravedigger with a romantic soul.

Nathanael took a drag on his cigarette and blew a bit of grey smoke towards the tomb of Sherlock Holmes.

"I wish you welcome, sir."

He smiled and left at a tranquil pace, using his rake as a cane.

* * *

The next day, there was a man in front of the grave. Nathanael had never seen him before so he came a bit closer, keeping a certain distance so as not to disturb the mourner. He was shorter than most people, but not skinny like the youth of today, on the contrary. His shoulders were squared and he held himself upright, like a soldier. Nevertheless he kept his head lowered and stared at the grave without really seeing it.

Nathanael decided he'd been wrong about Sherlock Holmes - that man had been loved.

The guardian did not move, observing the stranger who spoke in a low voice. He stayed several minutes, then fell silent, crouched and awkwardly brushed the black marble with the tips of his fingers. He stood up quickly and left. The guardian had rarely seen such despair on such a young face. Life was a sad thing, sometimes.

* * *

Nathanael was lighting a cigarette when he saw him again, a week later. This time, he did not resist his curiosity and got up from the bench. The blond man had an expression that was quite common in a cemetery, a mixture of anger and frustration.

"You're a bastard, Sherlock."

His voice was full of bitterness. Nathanael was several meters from the tomb, his cigarette in hand. The man didn't notice.

"A fucking bastard. I don't give a shit about your money and your stuff, goddammit!" he almost yelled. "You had no business leaving me everything like that. I know you didn't get along with Mycroft, but you could have made an effort, at least on your will - my God, I didn't even know you had a will!" The man got his breath back and ran a hand through his hair.

"And you, what do you want?"

The guardian smiled. "Pardon me, I didn't think you'd seen me. I'm the guardian, Nathanael."

The mourner lifted mahogany eyes towards him.

"The guardian?" he repeated.

"Yes."

"I didn't even know there was a guardian."

Nathanael shrugged and brought his cigarette to his mouth. He heard that a lot.

"Sorry for yelling like that," the man added with a note of embarrassment.

The guardian smiled patiently. "I've seen much worse in my life, sir. A widow once came with a set of bagpipes. She played until the police arrived."

The man frowned. "You called the police?"

"I'm here to ensure the peace and quiet of the cemetery. They just confiscated the bagpipes until she calmed down, obviously."

"I'll think about it," said the man and Nathanael wondered if he was joking. "Just to warn you, I'm an ex-soldier."

"I had my suspicions."

The expression that flashed over the man's face was so fleeting that he couldn't identify it, but it was definitely painful.

"How so?"

"You hold yourself straight and upright. Not like today's kids."

The man relaxed a little and held out a hand that the guardian shook..

"John Watson."

"A pleasure. Mr. Holmes was a friend?"

"Among other things, yes." Nathanael's small smile seemed to irritate him. "I mean we worked together, and we lived together, but we weren't -"

"A couple, yes, I understand."

John nodded and turned to the grave.

"He was insufferable," he added in a smaller voice.

He sighed softly, suddenly overwhelmed by grief. Nathaniel wedged his cigarette between his lips and put a hand on the other man's shoulder.

"But he was my best friend, and that will be forever."

"I'm really sorry, John. You know..." The guardian's blue gaze strayed to the tombs around them. "Some think that if you keep on meeting people who suffer, you wind up become insensitive to others' pain: they're wrong. Every story is different."

John tensed slightly and Nathanael took away his hand. The mourner gazed at the gold-lettered name on the tomb, and the guardian smoked distractedly while staring at the sky.

"Thank you for your solicitude," said John at last, with an edge of irony.

He left quickly, and the guardian watched him go while blowing a bit of smoke. Sometimes, it seemed, he tried a little too hard.

* * *

Nathanael's grandson sometimes helped him dig graves. That day, they were burying an old woman, and the procession was rather restrained - distant parents who didn't cry and several friends who only seemed vaguely sad. The guardian understood these people but feared them a little as well. Such indifference had a sort of anguished quality to it.

He gave a final push with his shovel and left to let the priest pronounce several toneless words. His grandson wiped his stained hands on his washed-out jeans before beginning to tap furiously on his phone. Nathanael considered him with a light sigh, drew a packet of cigarettes from the pocket of his overalls and and lit one. The golden-lettered tomb was right behind him.

"No one's come to see you in two weeks, Mr. Holmes," he murmured in its direction. "I'm sorry if I angered your friend and I hope he'll come back."

He inhaled a mouthful of tobacco, ignoring the cackling of his grandson.

"You still talk to the stiffs?"

"Of course."

The boy raised his eyes.

"Who's that one?" he added, nodding at the grave.

"He arrived recently and I don't know much about him at the moment. But I think he was a complex man."

"Sherlock Holmes," read the boy aloud. "Congratulations, you've picked up a celebrity."

Nathanael raised an eyebrow.

"Meaning?"

"It's the fake genius of Baker Street, a sort of psychopath who made up a ton of weird crimes to show off in solving them."

"A policeman?"

"Detective, actually. A fraud who made the headlines for a while," he clarified with a mocking grin. "He committed suicide when people found out the truth."

He was going to continue, when his grandfather sent him a dark look.

"You believe this story because according to you, the press is never wrong?"

"I -"

"Tell me, my boy, if tomorrow the Sun announced that I was a pedophile, would you believe it immediately?"

"No," said the boy faintly.

"Don't ever rely on a single source and think on your own. You'll live better that way." Nathanael smiled distractedly at the detective's grave. "I don't know if that gentleman was a fraud, but I saw his friend several weeks ago. The grief he bore had nothing fake about it."

The boy nodded vigorously. "I can bring you info on him, if you want. From before people started saying he wasn't for real."

"No thanks, I don't like detective stories," he replied with a trailing voice.

Nathanael had been a member of the London underworld for too long to be interested in its natural enemies. The police were easy to corrupt, but detectives had a tendency to act the hero and he didn't appreciate people messing with their business.

* * *

Two days later, the guardian was watering the potted flowers at the base of a family tomb when he saw him. The man was tall and thin. He walked at the edge of the trees, looking hesitant, carefully approaching Nathanael. The guardian put down his watering can and straightened, taking a drag on his cigarette. He had plenty of time to detail the stranger's face - and what a face.

Long, angular with prominent cheekbones, as strange as unexpected. The eyes fixed on the guardian were grey tinted with pale blue, lit with the blow of a voracious intelligence. He had short red hair with several longer strands that brushed the nape of his neck. Dressed in a leather jacket tied at the waist, he had a false air of a trendy student. Nathanael wouldn't have recognized him even had he accepted his grandson's proposition.

"You're the guardian?"

His low, deep voice clashed with his appearance.

"Yes. Nathanael, pleasure to meet you."

The man didn't shake the proffered hand, and Nathanael didn't give it too much thought.

"Are you looking for someone?" he asked, indifferent.

"John Watson. I know he's been here."

"That's true."

"Tell me about him."

"Excuse me?"

It was the first time anyone asked him something like that, and he'd seen some strange things in his lifetime.

"Are you deaf?" replied the man, before softening his tone. "Tell me what you thought of him, what impression he made."

"Who are you, sir?"

Sherlock returned his impassive gaze for a moment and sighed.

"Someone who worries about him - you can call me Hamish."

He said the name with a certain hesitation, and Nathanael wondered if the shovel next to his would be a good enough weapon.

"Right, Hamish. First give me proof that you don't wish John any harm."

Another sigh. Sherlock internally cursed himself for not having thought about this before coming to the cemetery - he needed to know how John was doing.

"I have none. Take my word for it."

His voice was almost pleading.

"Please, it's very important."

Dammit, he hated showing such weakness. Nathanael's eyes wouldn't let him go.

"He's suffering," came the reply at last, "like any man with a heart who just lost his best friend."

The guardian inhaled a mouthful of tobacco.

"Don't tell him about me or he'll die," whispered Sherlock.

Nathanael nodded and watched the red-haired stranger disappear among the trees.

* * *

The next day, rain fell for hours. Water trickled over the tombs and graves, making channels in the aisles and wetting the leaves on the trees, making them shine and glisten. Nathanael had taken refuge in the shack next to the entrance, waiting for some respite by reading an old, mind-numbingly boring book. He lifted his gaze to serve himself a glass of whisky and saw a man in the cemetery.

It was John Watson and he was quite soaked.

Nathanael got up, cracked his joints, and went out in the rain. The sweater he wore under his overalls kept him warm and he was too British to bring an umbrella. Walking slowly through the mud, he made his way towards the tomb of Sherlock Holmes where John had stopped. The memory of his meeting with the red-haired man came back to him and he sighed.

"John?"

The din of the rain swallowed his voice, and he came closer until he'd almost reached him. The other man's face trickled with water and his blonde hair was stuck to his temples, dripping on his jacket. He turned his head toward the guardian and gave him an apologetic smile.

"Sorry for leaving like that last time; I'm rather excitable at the moment."

The black marble of the gravestone glistened softly.

"I should be the one apologizing, John. I was being insensitive."

The other man nodded, staring at the golden letters that insolently shouted his friend's name.

"I always make too much tea," he began without knowing where he was. "So I throw it away. It's too bad, but no matter how much I concentrate on putting in less water, I can't."

He sighed, glanced at the guardian who gave him a neutral look in return, and kept going.

"I have all these memories in my head whirling around and around, and everywhere I look I see him - on the couch, sitting at the kitchen table, next to the window with his violin. It's as though he's still with me. When I see someone with a long coat, I jump a little. When I hear gunshots, I look around to make sure he's all right. When I sleep, I dream of him. It's unbearable. I can't even..."

John took a deep breath.

"I thought we would spend the rest of our lives together. That we'd die together," he finished painfully, and his voice broke.

Nathanael laid a wrinkled hand on his shoulder.

"Come take shelter until the rain stops, it'll do you no good to catch cold."

John laughed bitterly.

"Sherlock was never cold, even in the middle of winter when it was snowing. I kept wondering if he was human."

He knelt suddenly and laid his hand on the marble trickling with water. The noise of the rain was deafening and when he spoke, it was in a voice too small for Nathanael to hear.

"Now I know he was."

And, ignoring the tears mingling with the rain on his face, he added, "You should have let me get on that bloody roof and jump along with you. At least then I'd be properly dead."

He straightened, turned to Nathanael.

"Thank you, but I have to go."

John walked away and his tired silhouette vanished into the fog.

* * *

The redheaded man with the angular face returned the next week, looking agitated and impatient. He had a long cut, not entirely healed, along his cheek and was limping slightly. Nathanael beckoned him to the shack and he accepted without saying anything, running his gray eyes along the rows of tombs. The sun cast shapeless shadows in the aisles.

The guardian offered him a glass of whiskey that he accepted with a trembling hand. He drank a long draught, sighed and sat on a corner of the bench.

"So it's you, then?"

Sherlock raised an eyebrow, making the guardian grin.

"Mr. Holmes, of course. It took me a moment to recognize you. You didn't have red hair in the photos."

The man shivered and closed his eyes.

"I finally listened to my grandson," explained Nathanael. "For a man who committed suicide last month, you seem fairly alive."

Sherlock put the glass down, ran a hand over his face and turned to Nathanael. "It would take too long to explain it. Too risky, as well. Has John come back?"

"Yes."

"How is he doing?"

"Worse and worse, which is rather surprising. Think well, sir. If you come back too late, he may not survive."

"I know," replied Sherlock with a note of despair. "I'm doing my best, but it would seem that I underestimated Moriarty's agents."

He finished his glass of whiskey and stood up. His black leather jacket was stained with blood at the collar. Nathanael thought about offering to help, he decided against it. When he was younger, perhaps, when he'd still been capable of killing a man with his bare hands, he would have been able to help.

"I think I'll go put flowers on your tomb. You like roses?"

Sherlock grinned. "Only the ones with really painful thorns. Thanks for the drink."

He left the shack and Nathanael, watching him disappear between the trees, had the unpleasant sensation of getting mixed up in the business of dangerous people.

* * *

When the guardian saw John again, he noticed he'd lost some weight. He got up from the bench and gave him a polite smile.

"I don't know anything about you," remarked John.

"Better for my security and for yours, my boy."

John's gaze traveled to the sky, and he murmured that at this point nothing really scared him much. He was holding something and the guardian frowned upon seeing it. "Is that a human skull?"

"Yes. It belonged to Sherlock Holmes," he explained, bending over to place it on the tomb. "Are these roses?"

"If you don't like them, you can take them away."

John was forced to admit that the black marble was less painful this way. A bouquet of red roses with thing petals rested just underneath the golden letters, tied together by a thick piece of yellow raphia.

"They're amazing." He straightened and smiled faintly at the guardian. "Thank you; I didn't have the courage to go to a florist. Sherlock wasn't interested in flowers."

"Let's hope he likes these, then," replied Nathanael with an edge of malice.

"In any case, they go well with the skull."

Nathanael nodded in silence.

"Hamish will be surprised," he began, wondering it he was as good a liar as he used to be.

"Hamish?"

"That's the name of the florist who provided the bouquet."

"Chance is a strange thing," remarked John distractedly.

"How so?"

"Hamish is my middle name."

"Indeed."

That Sherlock Holmes was an attentive man. Nathanael left John alone facing the grave and was relieved when he raised his hand to signal him as he left.

* * *

Nathanael was digging a grave when he saw Sherlock again. The man didn't come closer this time and stayed at the edge of the trees, no doubt worried that someone would recognize him - about twenty black-clad people were waiting for the guardian to finish his work to finish the ceremony. He could see the angular face pretty well, and knew the other man was looking at the now-flowered tomb and the skull resting there.

The guardian thought he saw tears in those grays eyes, but it was probably just a trick of the light.

Sherlock stayed a long time then left. He didn't come back for two months and Nathanael frequently wondered if he was finally dead for good.

* * *

John came by almost every week, sometimes with a thermos of tea and a book, or just a sandwich and bottle of water.

"I've taken back my job at the clinic," he explained the first time. "My lunch break is long enough for me to come here."

John seemed to be the type of mad who liked to have his habits, and Nathanael felt that he needed to lead a more routine life to get better. When he arrived, he stopped for a moment in front of Sherlock's tomb, talked to him or berated him, then joined Nathanael on the stone bench. They ate in silence, made a round of the cemetery that was always deserted at this time, and came back to sit and talk.

At first, the conversation was all about Sherlock; how he wasn't a fraud, how the journals had been manipulated, how he still believed in him and his extraordinary intelligence. Bit by bit, John began to bring up investigations and chases through London. After several weeks, the memories began to be more personal, more intimate.

Nathanael was almost embarrassed to listen but he never asked him to be quiet.

John recounted how he tried getting him to eat. How he liked hearing him play the violin, even at three in the morning. Why he could never keep a girlfriend. The strange, dark dreams he'd had after the Great Game. What he wished he could have told him. The fear of going insane. The great void - the void he'd left behind, the void he'd hollowed out in John's heart, the void that was now his life.

When Sherlock came back, Nathanael and John were sitting on the stone bench and the guardian was the only one to see him. He was quite far away, at the edge of the trees, and the red on his leg could only be dried blood. He stayed there no longer than a minute, and disappeared when John lifted his head to announce that he was moving away.

The guardian was so surprised, it took him a moment to speak.

"No, John, that's not a solution."

"Excuse me?"

"I know you're overwhelmed by sadness and memories, but you like that flat, don't you?"

"Yes."

"And your landlady?"

"I can come by and visit her anyway. I can't bear to live there anymore, it's..."

He sighed.

"It's stifling," he finished.

"I understand, John, but don't leave. Your memories will follow you wherever you go."

The mourner nodded vaguely and Nathanael stared anew at the trees. He had never more regretted more being old and tired, incapable of helping these men who needed each other so much.

* * *

It was night when Sherlock returned, and an entire month had passed since the last time. tHe guardian closed and locked the shack, s'apprêtant à partir pour rejoindre son autre chez-lui. the silence that reigned in the cemetery was sometimes disturbed by the rustling of the leaves on the trees. Nathanael lit a cigarette, and it was the orange glow of his lighter flame that guided Sherlock in the aisles.

"Do you have any whiskey left?" he called in a tired voice.

The guardian raised his eyes and met those, gray and cold, of the man who was not dead. But he was in a terrible state - staggering among the graves, his arms crossed over his torso and his breathing ragged. So alone. So weary.

"Come, I'll take care of you."

Nathanael reopened the shack and let him enter. Sherlock grimaced under the raw white light, sat on the bench and sighed. He had a bluish bruise on his cheek and a cut above one eyebrow. The wound bled faintly, reddening his pale skin. He let himself be tended by the guardian without a word but refused to sleep in the shack.

"It's too risky for John, and not just him."

"I don't fear death, my boy."

"No, not you. Mrs. Hudson. Lestrade. If Moriarty's network learns I'm alive, they will all die," he said flatly.

"Can I do anything to help you?"

Sherlock smiled bitterly.

"I am the only one who can do it."

"And what are you doing, exactly?"

Sherlock hesitated for a brief instant before replying.

"I'm dismantling Moriarty's network, his spiderweb. It's so vast that it's taking me forever. But I'm almost at the end, soon I'll be able to come back."

Nathanael nodded.

"And if you die?" he asked neutrally.

Sherlock closed his eyes briefly.

"If I don't come back in, let's say six months, tell John everything you know."

The guardian held his gaze, patient and understanding.

"I'll do that."

"Thank you," replied Sherlock faintly.

He got up, ran a hand over his face and let out a groan of pain.

"Your ribs?"

"Yes," he breathed. "That bastard broke at least two."

He made his way slowly towards the door of the shack and turned towards Nathanael.

"Tell John that he was everything to me and that I'm sorry. And that I love him, if that really means anything."

Sherlock disappeared into the twilight and the guardian wondered if he'd see him again, hoping with all his heart that the answer was yes but understanding it was no, that the man who was not dead would die for good.

* * *

John kept coming every week, and never again brought up the idea of leaving Baker Street. He was doing a little better, having taken up exercising again and going out with girls once in a while. But his gaze was empty and kept coming back to the black marble grave. The guardian watched the days go by, powerless, wondering if he'd be able to keep his word - he'd think he was killing John.

But Sherlock came back.

As strange as it seemed to Nathanael, he survived and reappeared suddenly after three months.

"I'm sorry," he said upon reaching the guardian.

Nathanael had just been maintaining the abandoned graves and had sat on the stone bench, his watering can sitting at his feet. He had lit a cigarette, letting his blue eyes stray through the cemetery, and seen a silhouette close to the entrance. A tall, thin silhouette in a gray jacket, whose red hair was once again shorter, brown and curly.

Sherlock was limping slightly but seemed in good health. The guardian thought that if he'd still believed in God, that man would have been a miracle.

"Sorry for what?"

The man who was not dead sat next to him.

"For having asked you to talk to John. Anyway, would you really have done it?"

Nathanael shrugged and took a drag on his cigarette.

"I don't know. He's supposed to come here today."

"I know."

"So that's it? You resurrect yourself and take up your life again the way you left it?"

Sherlock let silence go by.

"That's up to John, but I trust him. I've always trusted him," he added with a half smile.

"He's suffered a lot, I very much doubt that he'll open his arms to you and welcome you back among the living."

"I'll see what will happen when the moment arrives," he admitted, lowering his voice.

He got up slowly, grimacing at each step and limping only to his own grave. The roses had long since faded, but the guardian had laid two pots of white daisies on either side of the black marble. Sherlock bent over to pick up the skull and came back to sit on the bench. He said no more. Nathanael finished his cigarette and went back to work.

When John arrived, a thermos of tea in his hand - he was still sometimes unable to eat lunch, on the blackest days when the memory of Sherlock became unbearable - the guardian addressed him a wave that he returned. Then, grinning despite himself, he motioned to the stone bench. John turned around and the expression on his face became a strange mixture of joy and fear.

"What..?" he articulated with difficulty.

Nathanael went towards him and took the thermos.

"No, you're not dreaming, John. I can see him as well as you can. Go, he's been waiting for hours."

John stammered, gave in and slowly went over to the stone bench. Sherlock did not dare look him in the eyes or make the least deduction. He wanted to say he was sorry, to explain how Molly had helped him fake his death, why he had had to run away and how much time and energy it had cost him to take apart Moriarty's network. But he knew none of that really mattered to John.

So he said what counted:

"I'm alive."

"...I can see that."

There was a brief silence, then they turned to each other.

"Thanks for the skull," he finally said.

John smiled faintly at him and Sherlock felt happier and more alive than he'd felt in six months - the six longest months of his life, no doubt.

"We need to talk," said John.

The detective nodded. He got up and ignored the pain in his wounded leg. The doctor mirrored him, seeming to hesitate between punching him and kissing him. Finally he chose the first option. Sherlock stumbled and almost fell; John immediately caught him. He put a hand on his reddened cheek and sighed.

"Did you really have to?"

"No, but it makes me feel better. So you came to the cemetery often? Nathanael seems to know you well," he said, thinking that the friendliness and ease between them was almost scary.

"I needed to know how you were doing."

John let out a weary sigh, feeling a headache coming on. He mentally called himself an overreacting idiot and grabbed Sherlock by the collar to wrap his arms around him. He'd gotten thinner, but that was still very much his warm, angular body and his now-familiar scent.

"I missed you," Sherlock murmured into the skin of his neck.

His bony hands clung onto his shoulders and John pulled him closer against him.

"I missed you too," he said in a low voice, feeling tears flow down his face. "Don't leave again."

"Never," promised Sherlock.

Nathanael watched them with a smile on his face, leaning on the handle of his rake with his cigarette on him lips. Of all the stories he knew of the cemetery and its mourners, this one was definitely the most beautiful - he would keep it for himself, like a secret, stowed away in the deepest parts of the romantic soul lost in his gravedigger's body. It was better that way.

* * *

The guardian's grandson later told him about the newspaper headlines. Sherlock Holmes was free from all suspicion and he had reestablished the truth about Moriarty and Richard Brook, receiving congratulations and apologies. Nathanael barely listened to the boy's chatter, too busy pruning a shrub with his cigarette in his mouth. He was thinking of the flowers he was going to order for the new graves when his grandson gave a shout.

"What now?"

"You've got visitors," cried the boy with enthusiasm.

Nathanael turned around and recognized John and Sherlock.

"Go run around, my boy."

"Huh? But that's -"

The guardian cut him off with a dark look and the boy left quickly. John came over and shook his hand, grinning and looking much better than before.

"Hello, Nathanael."

"John. It's a pleasure to see you again."

He nodded at Sherlock, who was nonchalantly leaning on a cane and wearing a black trench coat - almost identical to the photos in the news, but with something more in his gaze.

"Have you come for the tombstone?"

"Oh, no, I think we'll leave it."

"It's very symbolic," he remarked with a grin.

John chuckled.

"I agree. Actually, I came to thank you for having taken care of Sherlock. That's one hell of a task you managed there, he's the worst patient I know."

"I've seen worse."

"You must have had a very exciting life."

Nathanael raised an eyebrow.

"It's better that you don't know anything about it, John. I was young and intrepid once, too."

The doctor lifted his gaze to the sky and turned towards Sherlock.

"You don't have anything to say?" he inquired.

"Sorry to have gotten you mixed up in all this," murmured Sherlock while looking away.

"He's been careful since his return," said John. "He owes me that, at least."

"I see."

Nathanael inhaled a gust of tobacco.

"In any case, you seem to be doing better, John."

"Part of that is thanks to you."

The guardian shrugged.

"Just doing my job."

"You should drop by Baker Street and see us sometime."

"I'll think about it. But don't kid yourself, I'm lost when I leave the cemetery," he said with a smile. "The living are more tiring than the dead."

"Maybe." John glanced at Sherlock. "But I still prefer the living." His voice had an edge of melancholy.

They didn't stay long, Sherlock having already found a complex case for which Lestrade needed him. There was a final wave, a smile and a gust of tobacco, then Nathanael was once more alone in the hushed silence disturbed by the rustling of the trees. The cemetery still had more secrets to uncover.


End file.
